To truly forgive, you must be able to listen, not only to Express what we want. To hear another is to give him the opportunity to explain his position, without interrupting him, without thinking all the time about the claims that we are going to show, without always trying to assert their opinion and to prove that we are in conflict more right and smarter than the other. Listening is actually to be strongly minded to come to an understanding.
You need to agree to each of the parties had the opportunity to speak and be fully heard. Also each participant of the conflict, it is useful to repeat what the other person, to make sure that he really understood his words correctly.
Empathy is the ability to understand that he feels a second side, put yourself in the place of another and try to understand his point of view from this perspective. This does not negate the feelings or point of view first hand. However, empathy allows you to step outside your emotions and see what other people are experiencing other feelings, they have a different experience and they interpret the situation differently.
Someone once told me "listening is a skill" it's easy to talk but hard to listen.